Maestro of the Mouth Organ

Larry Adler (Performer), Carroll Gibbons (Performer), Ruth Etting (Performer), Fred Hartley (Performer), Jay Wilbur and His Band (Performer), Stephane Grappelli (Performer), Django Reinhardt (Performer), Eugene Vees (Performer), Roger Grasset (Performer) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Performer: Larry Adler, Carroll Gibbons, Ruth Etting, Fred Hartley, Jay Wilbur and His Band, et al.
• Audio CD (July 18, 1995)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Asv Living Era
• ASIN: B000001HID
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #310,649 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Rhapsody In Blue

2. If I Could Be WIth You One Hour Tonight

3. Bolero

4. Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

5. The Continental

6. Caprice Viennois

7. I Won't Dance/Lovely To Look At Tonight

8. Cheek To Cheek

9. Isn't This A Lovely Day?/Top Hat

10. Ritual Fire Dance

11. St. Louis Blues

12. Sophisticated Lady

13. Solitude

14. Tiger Rag

15. Red Sails In The Sunset/I'll Never Say 'Never Again' Again

16. Intro: I'm Putting All My Eggs In One Basket/I'd Rather Lead A Band/Let Yourself Go

17. They All Laughed

18. Love Me Forever/South American Joe

19. Empty Saddles/Is It True What They Say About Dixie?

20. Body And Soul

See all 24 tracks on this disc

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Larry Adler's early recordings a must for harmonica fans, December 30, 2001

By 

peter krampert (eharmonica.net) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Maestro of the Mouth Organ (Audio CD)

Larry Adler was the harmonica virtuoso who brought more to the harmonica than any other player, before or since. Unable to make it into Vaudeville with a harmonica band, Adler set out to treat the harmonica as the equal to any other musical instrument. By the end of the 1930's, serious Classical composers were writing for the instrument as a result of Adler's treatment of the harmonica.

The recordings presented on this CD represent a sampling of the work Adler did during the 1930's, from his earliest recording date with Ruth Etting to recordings made with Django Reinhardt and the Hot Club of France. Though a little light on the classical side due to time constraints of recordings of that era, this collection does represent some very impressive outings with a respectable selection of songs by Gershwin, Ellington, Porter and other songwriters of the day. No look at the career of Larry Adler would be complete without these important early recordings.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Virtuoso Unfairly Treated In His Home Country, June 21, 2008

By 

AvidOldiesCollector (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Maestro of the Mouth Organ (Audio CD)

Long before the likes of Jerry Murad & The Harmonicats made the instrument popular enough to achieve Billboard single chart status, there was Borrah Minevitch and His Harmonica Rascals and one Lawrence Cecil Adler, born in Baltimore on February 10, 1914. In fact, after teaching himself to play the "mouth organ" (a name he preferred to "harmonica" or "harp" to his dying day) he ran away from home and headed for New York City at age 14 where he tried to join the Minevitch group but was told, rather unkindly by Borrah "Kid ... you stink."

That didn't discourage Adler, though, as. with references from band leader Rudy Vallee, he instead began earning $100 a week playing in movie theatres during intervals between silent films before landing work with the great Eddie Cantor, not as a mouth organist but rather in skits as a page boy since Cantor thought he looked very much like himself as a young lad. He also worked for a time with Al Jolson, orchestra leader Paul Ash, and even Florenz Ziegfeld, before finally being hired by British entrepreneur C.B. Cochran to appear in a London revue. And that's where he became a huge star in the 1930s, playing with some of the best British bands at the time, including Henry Hall.

As you will see from this terrific volume from ASV Living Era of the U.K., his style was definitely jazz-oriented and these were some of his most popular records in that country, as detailed in the three pages of liner notes written in 1995 by Peter Dempsey. The sound reproduction is nothing short of fantastic considering the age of the recordings.

Any hope of striking it big in his own country were dashed when the long accusing finger of McCarthyism pointed at him during that infamous time when "Comoonists" were said to be infiltrating every aspect of American life. God help you if your nickname was "Red." The accusations were false (as were just about all of McCarthy's rants), but, unable to find employment, he felt compelled to return to the U.K. in 1949 where he lived out the remainder of his life. Even when he earned an Oscar nomination for writing the score for the 1953 British film Genevieve, the vindictive Americans managed to make sure his name did not appear on the credits for the U.S. release.

A great talent caught up in the idiocy of the time, Larry Adler passed away in London on August 8, 2001. Give a listen if you like both the sound of the "mouth organ" and some of the best music to come out of the 1930s. The man was very very good.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not just for harmonica fans!, July 16, 2005

By 

Jmark2001 (Florida) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Maestro of the Mouth Organ (Audio CD)

I bought this out of curiousity as I collect music from 1920-1939 and I am glad that I did. Adler was not some corny, tasteless performer inflicting "Lady from Spain" on the listener. This guy was a superb musician with good taste who really tweaks these great standards from the thirties and gives them a new twist. Enjoyable arrangements with small and large orchestras. Well worth having.